


Drinking together is better than alone

by Catharrington



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Consent Issues, House Party, Hurt/Comfort, Light BDSM, Light Bondage, M/M, Protective Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington Is a Mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:20:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25449754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catharrington/pseuds/Catharrington
Summary: Steve and Billy are friends, acquaintances really, they saved the world together once. That doesn’t mean they are close or anything. That doesn’t mean Billy should care. Why does he seem to care?
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 118





	1. Cream in my coffee

**Author's Note:**

> This was an angst prompt challenge originally on tumblr that I wrote into a good sized chunk. So I’m posting it here :)

The bedsheets were the color of cream, soft and yellowed, milk inside coffee. They scratched against Steve’s back as he whimpered. As he snapped his fingers that were tied behind his back with a strong pair of handcuffs. Their metal digging into his wrists.

He snapped harder. Louder.

Above him, another man’s back glistening and curved over Steve’s twisted bones, the man cursed out loud. The sound an itching thing. He moved with rough fingers to untie the blindfold and the gag from the birds nest of the back of Steve’s head.

“Unlock them, now,” Steve demanded as soon as he could. His voice shivering and cracking with the effort. His body involuntarily flinching as the other’s hands grab the metal chain between the handcuffs and yank them forward to twist their key.

He was sore. Red and puffy, the skin around Steve’s wrists; red and puffy, the skin around Steve’s eyes. With the cuffs finally off he took a shaky breath, rubbing at the burns quickly cooling in the stagnant air of the bedroom.

“I… didn’t like that,” Steve whispered down to his hands.

His legs curled up into himself. In a feral state of mind, he shuffled backward until he got his back on the headboard and his knees clenched to his stomach in a defensive posture.

The other man, his bed soft and warm, only looked away disappointed. “I know you didn’t like that,” he sighs, “there’s not much hard stuff you do like, babe,” and then he laughed.

Steve watched his mouth part in a mocking smile. He laughed. And Steve caught his breath in fear.  
“Why don’t you just… make an effort?” The man continues. Finally turning to notice Steve’s wide eyes. “Meet me half way? It’s not so bad-,”

“What are you trying to say?” Steve asks meekly. His voice low, but he’s starting to feel it rising inside of him. Some of the words he’s been holding away for a while trying to get out.

“I mean, Steve, that you should do this for me. Don’t you want to make me feel good?”

Steve opened his mouth, and closed it. Looked down at his naked legs on cream sheets. Looked at his wrists spinning around in his thin fingers. His blood so close to ripping from the tender skin.

“I don’t want to do this anymore.” The whisper was like a whip cracking into the air. It stung Steve to say it. But he squared his shoulders, hugged his elebows to his sides, and straightened his back.

“We’re through!”

That was even harder. Steve said it though, with all the strength in his chest, through his heart breaking, he said it.

The man was disappointed in him. He didn’t lash out or hit him. A part of Steve wanted him to, wanted to fight about it even if he lost. There was lots of fight bubbling under Steve. Brewing just under his olive skin. Flushing his cheek bones as he walked out the door and didn’t look back.

No car, he rode in the man’s passenger seat all the way up to his apartment just outside of Hawkins. Steve wasn’t about to ask for a ride back. And he damn well wasn’t going to take one if offered. So he walked off into the sunlight slowly fading outside. 

Down the long stretch of highway. Two dips of ditches on either side of the narrow two lane street. Weeds prickly and mean crawling out from their depth to try and over take the asphalt river. Steve stalked along their grasp. His long legs taking him fast. His arms folded over his stomach holding tightly. His ass hurting with each step.

Just as the sun started setting in the Indiana sky he gets to feel a dark piano note of emotion. Loud and sharp in his mind, reminding him what he said. Regret started creeping up just like the weeds on either side of him.

Steve pushes it away. Closed his eyes and blinked rapid to make the tears go away. He wouldn’t regret a single damn thing he said. He only regrets not saying more.

Then, like a chariot in the golden orange rays of setting sun, a long low to the ground sports car rumbles to a stop next to Steve. He cracks his eyes, knows before he has to see it though. The slick frame of Billy Hargrove’s Camaro.

“You lost, stranger?” his window is rolled down, lets his voice come out. And no matter the words it’s the voice that gets Steve’s breath hitching. Billy’s voice boyish and gentle despite what he says. Soft as cream sheets, warm as milk in coffee.

Steve grits his teeth. Holds onto his anger. It’s the only thing he has. “Leave me alone, Hargrove!” he hisses.

The Camaro stops following him with a sharp squeak of metal. Billy leans farther over the seat to look up at him through the window. His blue eyes that match his car’s paint scan over Steve. Like he’s checking on him, checking if he’s okay. Steve gives him a double take out the corner of his eyes, doesn’t want to feel the warmth he’s feeling. Wants to stay angry.

Steve scoffs loudly and starts walking quickly.

“Harrington?” Unmistakable sounds of a car door opening and closing. The rumble of a car in idle as Billy steps around the road and comes up behind Steve.

He’s always pressed behind him, in the basket ball court trying to get a rise out of him, in the Byers’ living room where the group is planning on monster hunting he’s behind Steve making lewd jokes about his bat. Trying to get a rise.  
When Steve’s walking alone down the street broken and sore he’s behind him cupping a hand over Steve’s shoulder. Trying to get a rise.

“Harrington, are those cuff marks? Are you okay?”

Steve stops short. Almost makes Billy crash into his back with how quick. Feels that huge hand that can palm a basket ball on his shoulder through his thin shirt so heavy. He wants to melt, to soften, to allow the comfort, but he suits angry more.

“What the fuck does it matter to you, Hargrove?” he turns just enough to see Billy. “Yeah, they are cuff marks. And yeah, I’m not fucking O-K! Why can’t you just ever stop talking and leave me alone?”

Billy’s face is funny in the way it softens. The way he looks like he cares. Must get all the girls wet with it. Steve winces as he swats the hand off his back and hurts his wrist in the process.

“You know I can’t do that,” Billy whispered. “I just want to help. Whatever is going on, let me-,”

“I don’t need, or want help,” Steve turned to Billy fully, shoving his shoulder with a shove that would put most off their feet, Billy doesn’t flinch, “what I want is for you to get the fuck away from me!”

Billy catches Steve’s hands by his wrists. His red and puffy wrists, wrestles with Steve to get both in his hands and pulls the other flush to his chest.  
Steve falls hollering, demanding he let him go, but Billy’s chest is soft and warm, comfortable in its strength. Matching the harsh red tones at the last little bit of sun set fading around them. His hands brush against that gold chain Billy never takes off, limp fingers tangling inside of it. Steve doesn’t realize he does it until he gets a good grip on the chain. Uses it to hold himself steady in unsteady waters.

“Y’know I can’t do that,” Billy repeats. Their faces are close. Both boys fluffy hair brushing against the other. But Steve isn’t looking up. He’s got his eyes down on golden hands on his hurt skin, golden metal strong in his thin fingers.

“Plenty of fish in the sea, pretty boy?” he says it like a question, means it like an answer. His grip on bony wrists lessens as he feels Steve relax on him. Sink the inch he has on Billy, down to the asphalt, let’s his body just barely press against Billy’s own.

Steve feels his anger dissipate. His furrowed brows uncurling in surrender. He dips his head forward and cries so his tears drop down onto Billy’s unbuttoned shirt. Onto fingers tangled in gold chain.


	2. Honey in my tea

The moment Steve drops into the leather seats of the Camaro, there’s a slap of denim on his arms. He’s still got his wrists spinning in his hands, around and around, like he can scrub off the memories. He looks down at the pile of jacket, looks up at Billy’s expectant face.

“Put it on,” he says. Demands it in a soft voice with no strength. Almost lost under the revving of the engine.

Steve watches for a moment, sees how those blue eyes shine as the street lights slowly flicker to life around them in the darkness. Then he shrugs on the jacket. Inch by inch, sore arms wiggling into the sleeves. Until Billy’s satisfied enough to turn back to the road.

The car ride to the Harrington home doesn’t feel long. Walking along the road alone felt like a penace, a damnation, Steve maddeningly taking the strides yet not moving anywhere. Never leaving the lake of black asphalt or the skeletal fingers of the weeds reaching around the sides to try and pull his hair. But the Camaro takes the top of the hill so fast it lifts up into the air. There’s loud and mean music playing from the radio, it hurts as much as it uncoils the tightness inside of Steve’s chest.

He’s still got tear tracks down his face, his body feeling pulled taught and then squeezed wrung out to dry. Steve pulls the collar of Billy’s jacket to stand up, uses the fabric to scrub at his face. He hopes Billy doesn’t notice.

When they pull into Steve’s driveway Billy gets out quick, jogs over to the passenger side door to get it open before Steve can. He accepts it with a pinched up brow, fights back laughing in Billy’s face. But Billy only grins as Steve walks past.

They walk up to the door together. Steve fishes out his keys and fumbles with them for a moment before slipping metal inside the lock. He doesn’t realize how close Billy’s followed him, how close he’s standing. Until Billy’s talking.

“Your parents home?” He asks.

Steve turns to him, he’s almost gone in the darkness, his color washed blue black by the moonlight, his wild sharp teeth catching most of the reflected light as he keeps his grin.

The key spins in the lock, the knob turns, they hear a sharp click, “not for another week,” Steve whispers back. There’s no lights on inside the Harrington house.

Billy doesn’t waste time. He presses his hand palm flat on the door and pushes it open. Steps right inside like he’s invited. Steve’s frozen solid, only moving to wince when Billy flicks on the hallway light, washing him in golden glow.

“Hargrove!” Steve calls after him, falling into the door. Kicks it closed behind him, drops his keys into an expensive glass bowl with a clatter. 

“Hargrove?”

“Har-,” he walks down the hallway, through the living room, following the trail of lights, turned into the kitchen. Steve finds him there riffling though his mother’s expensive cabinets she hired a personal interior designer to install. Their heavy wood opening then closing with a sharp click.

“Are you… looking for something?” Steve asks.

Billy keeps searching, curly hair bobbing down the line of them, until he’s at the right most cabinet and sings a little growl of a song as he pulls out a stainless steel kettle. Sets it down with a click. “Was getting worried there, thought you rich folk didn’t drink tea for a second.”

The sink comes to life as he fills the kettle with water, sloshing it around as he drops it to a stove top burner. Flicking the fire under it easily.

Steve leans himself against his kitchen bar, taking the weight off his sore legs. He bunches his shoulders up so the smell of tobacco and cologne on the denim reaches his nose better. This jacket feels nice, a part of Steve hopes Billy never asks for it back because he’d be inclined to say no.

“Billy Hargrove… why are you in my kitchen making tea?” he shakes his head with a doopy smile.

The only reply Billy gives is his short mean cackle he does. Reaches back up into the cabinet to run his stocky fingers over the neatly arranged boxes of tea. Steve tries not to look too long at the way his thighs stretch as he almost lifts to his toes, the way his muscles in his butt tighten with the effort, Steve blushes and keeps his eyes in check.

Billy sinks back down to his feet with organic farmed chamomile and a jar of expensive honey in his hands. “Remember when the Byers’ mom-,”

“Joyce,”

“Sure, back when we crawled out of the tunnels, and they showed up with that zombie boy who came back to life. She made us all tea. Sat around in a circle and sipped like little old ladies in a book club.” Billy dropped the tea bag with a wet noise. Thankfully, focusing on the kettle and not on the vulnerability growing over Steve’s brown eyes.

“Not much I don’t remember from that night, in fact I think I remember everything,” Steve says every word slowly, his eyes scanning across Billy’s back. They notice the way he stiffens.

“I haven’t had a full nights sleep in a long time.” Billy times it perfectly. Right as the kettle starts hissing he pulls it off the fire, makes the noise only as loud as an echo in the big empty house. “Seems every night I get woken by the howling inside those tunnels- inside my head.”

Billy turns around and slides a porcelain mug across the bar, steaming off the top, a silver spoon spinning around to melt a huge scoop of honey inside it. Steve cups it in his hands, the warmth thaws out his cold hands and sooths the bruises blackening on his wrists under the sleeves of his denim jacket. Billy’s denim jacket.

“What’s a fucked lay to all the monsters we’ve fought, huh, Harrington?” Billy cracks.

It feels personal, way too personal, that Billy can see into him that easily without many questions at all. But he makes Steve laugh. A soft rolling noise that builds in his chest and comes out music. His breath steadies out to the simple in and out with it, gentle when he hasn’t felt gentle in a long time.  
“Thank you, Hargrove,” he says.

“Don’t mention it,” Billy tries to take a drink of his own mug, but it’s still too hot. He ends up burning himself and licking his lips like a kicked dog. “Seriously don’t mention it. To anyone,” he hisses.

Steve laughs again.


	3. Rum in my cola

Steve’s not in the best of shape to hit a party the next night, less than 20 hours from his walk of shame and he’s sporting bruises on his wrists and a migraine— but he’s a high school senior. Even if fallen from grace, has to keep face. Even if the only thing he’s had over the entire day was a couple cups of tea with way too much sugar dissolved inside the mug.

Steve knew if he drank on an empty stomach it wouldn’t take long to get drunk, and a part of him is counting on it.

The stainless steel kettle is still out on his stove top. The lights leading to his kitchen are all still flipped on. He doesn’t want to touch anything. Doesn’t want to disturb the cloud of cigarette smoke and bad boy attitude Billy left lingering when he came and went. Steve doesn’t touch anything for those 20 hours because it will feel too much like he’s trying to hold Billy’s hand.

Instead, he stayed in his room, washing his skin until it rubbed red and then washing it again. Running his fingers through his hair to work his organic, name brand product in fresh. No more somber burnt coffee feelings of itchy bed sheets on his skin.

Steve comes out of his bathroom with a towel tied low on his hips. He traces his hands over the back of his desk chair where he laid out Billy’s jacket. He didn’t ask to keep it, also didn’t offer to give it back. Just kept it.

That night, when he decides he is going to keep face and show up at the graduating class’ senior year bash, he reaches for the jacket again to slip it on. It goes on much easier than in the Camaro where he gingerly grazed it over open wounds. Now the marks on his wrists are sore purple and black, and less burning red, but he’s happy to have the longer sleeves to pull down. To cover up.

He backs his expensive BMW out his driveway, he flipped all the lights off so his house looks decrepit, abandoned, as he pulls away.

Tina’s house is big, not as big as his, but big enough to come to a party and go unnoticed if you tried hard enough. Steve’s plan was to swim in, drink some beer and mix it with harder liquior to get him drunk faster, say a few short quips to make someone anyone laugh, then leave where he came. Maybe stumble home and find a sickly grey, dripping blood from the knife edges of teeth it calls a mouth, demogorgon he can sink his boiling anger into.

But now, he felt along the floral wallpaper as he made his way to Tina’s kitchen. He gets there and wraps his hands around the bottle of a chilled beer right from the fridge when the remote control hits pause.

“Thought I might find you here,” a voice dribbles down the back of his neck like burning alcohol. “I’m happy you got home safe, Steve.”

The long sleeve shirt Steve picked for the night feels too high up on the collar for him now. Feels choking and painful as he hears that voice again. The voice that was disappointed, not mad, even when Steve wanted to fight.

“You gonna look at me?” The man asks. An uppity tone to his voice. Makes Steve whip around his head to level him with a glare. The bruises on his wrists move with how hard he’s gripping the neck of his beer bottle. If it was any weaker, if he was any stronger, he could shatter it in his hands.

“What’s to look at?” Steve says quiet. They’re mostly alone in the kitchen. But the fluorescent lights are much brighter than any light that should shine down on their relationship. “I told you yesterday, I’m finished.”

The guy sighs out, stirs his mixed drink he’s nursing before he pushes it towards Steve down the counter. Steve doesn’t touch it, doesn’t even think of touching it. If the little gesture has done anything, it’s been to make his teeth grind down.

“You’re really gonna throw this away,” the man says smoothly, scooting close as his drink.

“Yeah,” Steve flicks dark brown eyes from the drink to the man’s face, “I guess I’m just not cut out for what you want.”

“You don’t know that until you try. Experiment-.”

“We tried plenty, decided I didn’t like most of it,” and Steve’s vision doesn’t waver even if his voice slightly does, “decided I didn’t like you.”

The guy swallows thickly. Takes his plastic cup and takes a swig long and loud. He’s obnoxious in the way he gulps it down, licks his lips to chase the dark liquid from the corners of his mouth, and leans in close enough so Steve can smell the mix on his lips. Rum and cola, the easiest fucking thing. The cheapest fucking thing. He’s had it at lots of parties, now he just feels sick about it.

“Back off me, man,” Steve whispers.

“Don’t be scared,” he slurs, reaching one hand that isn’t swirling his foul smelling drink and uses it to cup over Steve’s arm. Slides his big hand down around his wrist, squeezes denim into bruises, drawls out a hiss Steve doesn’t have time to muffle. Squeezed again when he figures it out.

Steve yanks out the hold quickly, pulling his arm back to his stomach to protect it, the other one pushing his beer bottle between them as if that’ll protect him. Maybe he will smash it over this guys head. Maybe he’ll smash it over the counter and use the sharped neck to carve away the mold growing over this guys skin.

That would take all night, so Steve only throws a glare before he’s moving off the counter and into the party.

He gets lost in the waves of people on people, grinding and pushing and laughing and drinking all together. Steve bumps against a guy, dark hair and freckles on his face, gets a plastic cup poured down his shirt for his troubles. But Steve isn’t listening to the empty threats. He scowls, shoots a “fuck off, Tommy,” before he keeps going.

Ends up on the back porch, the nighttime air trying to curl it’s fingers into the warm denim of Billy’s jacket. It doesn’t stand a chance. But there are real fingers chasing the air. They wrap around Steve’s wrist again and again dig into his tender skin. He’s got the beer bottle still in his hand and it swooshes around as he grips it like he’s ready for a fight.

But when he turns around: it’s Billy, Billy Hargrove, curly blond hair and dark eyelashes. Groomed brows drawn to a straight line of worry on his face. His hand drops from Steve’s wrist quicker than Steve can drop the beer bottle with a clatter to the ground.

The amber liquid pours out like honey between the wooden deck to the grass below.

“Gonna take a swing at me?” Billy asks. His voice humored, gentle, infuriatingly relaxing.

“Don’t touch me, Hargrove.” Steve warns.

Billy holds his hands up in the air. He’s wearing a new jacket, soft brown leather that’s worn almost down to the thread, thankfully, he’s not missing his denim jacket that got adopted out too much.

“You can take a swing, I won’t punch back. But you’ll be stuck on full nerd car ride duty if I die so good luck with that, Stevie,” he says with a wink.  
Steve doesn’t reply. Just glances around the porch until he finds a rail to lean against.

“Hey,” Billy keeps his soft voice low.

He follows Steve with the moonlight midnight blue dancing on his dark tanned skin. He lays a hand over Steve’s shoulder. One hand goes to touch his jaw so lightly Steve’s thinking he’s imagining it. Until Billy’s thick fingers slide up the bone and curl behind his ear. Tangled with the longest parts of his hair. It’s too familiar, far too familiar, for what little they are. But Steve can’t help but lean into the touch.

Coming to the party was a bad idea. He’s got half a beer in his stomach and a drink spilt down his shirt, and Steve’s already feeling sick enough to purr under Billy’s touch.

“What happened?” Billy asks. Steve doesn’t reply, lets his eyes slide closed and his skin soak up the warm fingers.

“It’s not… God- it’s not some monster shit again?” Billy’s voice is hushed.

Steve doesn’t know how to reply. No, he wants to say, of course not, but with the clawing rage building inside him mixing stiffly like a cheap drink with the fear he felt as he ran out of the kitchen; maybe it was a monster.

He doesn’t get to reply though, before the screen door to the porch is creaking open behind them. “Steve?” the man, monster, calls out for him.

Opening his eyes, Steve sees the wild back of Billy’s hair, curled tight and sticky with hairspray, and golden, so fucking golden, in the single naked bulb on the porch. Steve doesn’t have to see him to see him. He’s been on the receiving end of Billy’s glare enough, just last night before he got in the Camaro. It makes his toes curl in his socks.

“Glad I found you, babe,” the man leaves the door open, the pollution of light and noise spilling out over Billy’s gentle touch. Turns his shoulders rigged. Steve wants to cup them as comforting as Billy did to him last night, but he can’t. Only holds his own hands, his bruised wrists in his cold fingers, while he watches.

Billy doesn’t step aside, says, “what’s it ya lookin for, buddy?” while blocking Steve’s view like a wall.

The man catches himself for a second, he’s older but not by much, not by enough. And nothing the rum in his cola wouldn’t have equalized. “Steve,” he groans annoyed, “let’s go, we need to talk this out. Like two adults.”

And that gets Steve’s skin itching, scratchy, wants to rip a bat hammered through with nails into something soft. “There’s nothing more I have to say to you, oh- except maybe one thing: fuck off!”

“Don’t be immature about this-,”

“Didn’t you hear him?” Billy doesn’t let him finish. Cuts off that tone of disappointment like he was made to do it. Sends a shiver down Steve’s spine. He sits up on the railing just enough to see the man over Billy’s shoulder.

He notices the way the open door let a few curious eyes gather. One red flushed freckled face and curly red hair stand out. Steve looks between Tommy and Carol and Billy’s lip turned up into a snarl.

“Pretty boy here said fuck off, bitch,” he snarls, dog like, and each word is angrier than the next.

Tommy smiles wide, Steve recognizes that more than he should. And it’s familiar in a familiar painful sort of way. He wishes he was back in his kitchen away from all this. With the Billy who made him tea. Now he’s with Hawkins High top of the pyramid, wolves looking out for their pack with the same fervor they have to taste blood on their fangs.

Steve doesn’t know if this is about him anymore, a part of him knows it is, a part of him wants to think Billy is doing this singuarilly to defend him, but a shadow from his past is creeping in the open doorways yellow light smirking as if it knows better.

“Let’s go, Billy,” Steve says. He’s tired of thinking so much. Exhausted from it. Just wants to sink into leather Camaro seats and upturn the collar of Billy’s jacket and smell again. “Let’s get out of here,” he repeats, stepping forward to get a hand on Billy’s back.

“Oh! You’re not going anywhere!” The man slurs out as he zeros in on Steve’s hand, but those were the wrong words.

Quicker than Steve can think through his headache, quicker than the man can see through the haze of alcohol, but just as fast as a high school student’s hyena laughter; Billy’s hand balls into a fist and cracks against bone.

Snap, and the man is lurching backwards, his hands flying up to cup around his nose. Blood pours down his face and between his fingers red like the plastic cup he dropped on the ground. More dark brown liquid sloshes around his feet.

Billy moves without mercy. He scoops the man up by the collar of his shirt, yanking him to attention, getting real close.

“No one tells me what to do,” he hisses.

Steve can’t fucking take it. He reaches forward again, this time getting a fist in Billy’s jacket and pulling the fabric tight to get his attention. Feels like he’s pulling on a wild animals leash but he keeps pulling.

“Let him go, Hargrove, he’s not worth it,” he tells him what to do. Voice quiet under Tommy’s laughter and Carol’s cheers.

“Let’s go,” Steve presses the point of his sharp nose into the soft spot behind Billy’s ear, whispers right to him.

It’s easy as pressing a button on the other boy. Billy drops the man heavy on the ground. Listens to Steve above all the noise. He turns into the touch, allows it when Steve’s hand slides from where his jacket is bunched in the back and down to his wrist.

Steve wraps his hand around Billy’s wrist and pulls.  
They stumble together down the steps of Tina’s back porch. They stumble together across the dark grass in the middle of the night and search blindly for a baby blue Camaro. Billy finds it first, pressing his overheated skin against the chilled metal. Steve walks around the front, leading with his hands over hands across the hood to keep his balance. They drop into the leather seats. Steve takes a gulp of air that’s just as satisfying as lighting up his own marlboro red.

The engine starts to life, vibrating under his ass and pushing the blood through his slug stiff veins. Billy growls along with it. Throws his head back. His curly hair flattened on the back by his headrest as he opens his pretty mouth wide to holler. One hand gripping the wheel is skinned on the knuckles, blood just starting to drip out.

Steve lets his head fall back same as Billy. His chest heaving as hard as it was in the boys locker room showers, when his vision was orange glow and California sun kissed skin. And all he could think about was how mustaches feel when you kiss them.

Billy turns to him. Smug smile on his face. Trying to get a rise out of him.

“How’s that for fighting monsters, pretty boy?” he shouts.

Steve takes a second to breath. Closes his eyes and opens them slow just to make sure he’s got his head on right. 

Then he replies, “I fucking love fighting monsters with you, Billy,” and he means it.


End file.
